This'll be a breeze!!

“Wakey-wakey” I heard a soft recognisable voice calling me, without missing a beat I replied “Eggs and bakey” and got back to the land of consciousness. Opening my eyes I saw my mother standing over my head, looking at me with concern.   

“Thank god you’re up” she said with relief flooding her eyes.

“Mom? What are you doing here?” I asked as I saw Madam Pomfrey coming towards me with a vial of potion.

“Professor Dumbledore called me. He told me what happened” she told me as I gulped down the concoction. If this is what’s gonna wait for me every time I get injured then I think I'll be investing a little more time on a little self preservation. 

What a world it would be if you would actually take care of your self.

“Don’t worry, nothing happened.” I told her, sitting up on the bed.

“You passed out from magical exhaustion Mr. Fall. I don’t think I would call it nothing.” poppy said as she walked back towards her office.

“These things happen.” I told them, as I got back on my feet, stretching my muscles a bit “You didn’t have to be here for this.” I told my mother who of course just gave me a smile and said “Of course not. But I wanted to be.”

‘God, I love my imaginative mother’ “Thank you” I told her with a smile. When Madam Pomfrey came back she waved her wand and quickly checked my health “Well your core is back to it’s normal size, so you’re good to leave. I would advise you to take it easy for a few days.”

“Thank you ma’am.” I wished her and watched as she walked back to her office. The moment she was out of sight I conjured my regular clothes and switched them with the hospital gown I was wearing. All with just a few snaps of my fingers.

“She told you to take it easy Cass” My mother reprimanded me slightly but knowing that it won’t have any effect on me she just pulled out my showpiece wand and handed it to me. 

“I’m fine,” I told her as we walked out of the hospital wing and started walking through the faculty tower.

“Sure you are. So how are you finding the lion’s den?” she asked with a mischievous smile, as if she was trying to gather some kind of gossip.

“Lion’s den?” I asked with a small laugh.

“You know, Gryffindor”

“Why lion’s den though?” I asked as I saw a couple of Hufflepuff third years who quickly changed their direction when they saw me coming. 

This will be how things will go on for you now. It was dumb move, speaking parseltongue in front of everyone.

‘Well it wasn’t exactly me who started that now, was it?’

Just be ready for the next year

Ignoring them and Chat, I focused on my mother. “Well Slytherin is viper’s nest, Hufflepuff is badger’s burrow, Gryffindor is lion’s den, and Ravenclaw is eagle’s nest.” she told me with a proud look, which was well earned to be honest “That…. Is surprisingly creative.”

“I know right.”

“Anyways, it has been good, I like Gryffindor. I’m never bored there, clashes with Snape are really fun, and I like people too.” I told her as we came across the ghost of Eddie Cleaver and his wife chasing after him with a pan.

“Come on, there must be something wrong.” she asked, to which I just gave a sigh and said “Weasley.”

“You’re gonna have to be more specific.” she said after a second to which I gave a startled laugh

“Ronald.”

“Ooooh, full name. What’s wrong with him?” she asked excitedly.

“He’s a fucking Muppet and I hope he dies by the incurable condition of being a little bitch.” I told her without missing a beat which caused her to give a startled laugh. 

“He’s a eleven year old kid Cass, what could he have possibly done to be classified as a bitch?” she asked me again after she got her laughter under control.

“He hurt Hermione.”

“Like while playing?”

“No, he was put off by her intelligence and insulted her.”

“Hmm, and what did you do?” she asked after a few seconds to which I just gave her an innocent look and said “Nothing. He’s absolutely fine.” she just gave me a look that screamed ‘who do you think you’re talking to right now?’

“And I don’t believe it for a second. I still remember what you did to Nate, and Collin, and Flo, and Becca, and..” 

“Okay! Alright-alright. I may have threatened him a bit. But that’s all.” I said with a slight shrug, as if it was nothing.

“Your threats are not exactly light, I still remember when you promised to gut Collin like a pig and then make his older brothers eat him. All of that in front of his parents.” 

“Fucker deserved it.”  Damn right he did!

“Did Ron deserve it?” she asked with a raised eyebrow,

“Not really, but still! I had to do something!” 

“Just try to control your actions, or you might end up making things worse for her.” she said gently, which I guess is correct, but still.

“I’ll try.” I said sullenly. After that we made small talk and I told her all about what happened during these months, all while we were walking across the castle towards the grand entrance. 

“So, I have to leave now. Professor Dumbledore gave me special permission because Poppy wasn’t sure what you did or how to proceed.” she said once we reached the entrance, 

“You don’t need any permission, you know that right? I’m Lord Slytherin, my family will always be welcomed here.” I told her with a smile, which she returned easily. “That’s sweet, but I also have to go and complete a big potion order for Saint Mungo's.” she said with an Exasperated sigh. “oh and will it kill you to write to us once in a while?” 

“I thought Harry was a fine messenger.” I said with a laugh which she returned with one of her own too.

“Yeah but he filters a lot of things, your grandmother misses your colourful language. That reminds me, stop swearing in front of Harry and Hermione please.”

“I’ll try.”

“Now good luck.” she said giving me a hug, which confused me a bit to be “For what?” I asked.

“Harry and you spoke parseltongue in front of the whole school yesterday Cass.”

“Yeah, I can see how that might be a problem.”

“And students are not the only problem either.” okay I really don’t like that playful tone of hers.

“What now?”
“The snakes are still alive, hanging around in Gryffindor common room.” 

“Who told you that?” I asked, horrified.  

“Harry and Hermione. I met them when you were still out.” she said, while she was laughing at my expression.

“And you said nothing?” 

“I didn’t wanna be the bad guy, I want you to have that honour.” and with that she walked out of the door, laughing at my misfortune.

“You were supposed to be our guardian!” I shouted which just made her laugh even more.

Thinking about how I’m going to handle the situation I started walking through the almost empty castle, after last night’s incident, students must’ve been really shaken up, there were very few children out of their common rooms, and most were upper years, with these thoughts I reached the portrait of the fat lady and gave her the password “Custos” 

With a very small bow she swung opened the door and sight which greeted me was two large anacondas lounging around in the corner with Harry and Hermione, while the rest of the house was sitting in another corner looking at the snakes with fear and apprehension 

“Cass!” Harry shouted and hugged me the moment I entered the common room, “Hey Harry,” I greeted him as I hugged him back, after that I greeted Hermione as well and then turned my attention back to the reptiles. “Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, what the hell are they still doing here?” I asked, pointing to the snakes.

“What? Aren’t they cute?” Harry gushed and again ran towards them to pet them, the kid was radiating so much joy that it was almost sickening.

“No, they’re fucking snakes, they are not cute, they are dangerous and venomous as fuck!” I told him firmly, and it seems many others standing behind me agreed with me. Except for one, Hermione. “Cass, anacondas don’t have venom.” which boggled my mind a bit.

“They don’t?” Then why are they considered so dangerous? It’s there speed and agility that makes them so dangerous. Also the fact that they are so big that they can swallow you whole “it doesn’t matter! They are not suitable for this kind of environment. I mean where are we even going to leave them?” I asked incredulously, to which he exclaimed “Here! In the common room!”

“Harry, you can’t leave snakes in the common room, it’s called a common room for a reason. Can you tell me what that reason is?” I asked as if I was talking to a child.

….you are talking to a child Cass

‘Damn, sometimes I forget that part, he’s always so mature.’ 

“Because it is accessible to everyone?” he said, but he kinda phrased it like a question. From his expression it looks like he’s finally grasping it.

“That’s right, so no snakes!” I said as I vanished my conjured snake, and then I saw Percy standing against the wall on the far side of the room, away from the entire situation. “And what the fuck were you doing all this time? I seem to remember you shouting ‘I’m a prefect! Follow me firsties! No reason to panic!’. What? was that all for show?” I asked him which caused many sniggers in the background.

“No!....but you can’t exactly go against a guy who can instruct two big snakes to attack me.” he said pointing aggressively to harry. 

“Christ on a bike! How the fuck are you even in Gryffindor if you can’t handle a eleven year old kid?” I shouted which caused his entire face to go red in embarrassment. 

“Hey, that's not fair!” he exclaimed but I just turned around and did my best Will Poulter impression. “Oh cry me a fucking river Percy!” which caused many laughs in the room, the loudest were from the twins. Turning around I saw that Harry was still looking at his snake with regret and sadness. “Harry, please get rid of your snake.” I told him gently.

“Can I not keep him?”

“No.”

“But I want a reptilian friend!”

“We’ll see, but you can’t have a snake.”

“What about a dragon!”

“No.”

“What about a very mean spirited lizard?”

“.....Maybe.” I told him and finally he vanished his snake. After that I went to just rest on the couch for a few minutes. My magic is still not where it should be, maybe I’m still not mature enough to wield ancient magic properly. I was just thinking about this when Katie and Angelina came and sat next to me.

“What?” I asked when they just stared at me for a few minutes

“You’re a parselmouth.” Katie said, not asked, said. “Yeah, so?” I asked her with an amused smile.

“Aren’t Parselmouths like…evil?” Angelina asked with a little hesitation. I was just thinking how to best answer this question when I saw Parvati rolling her eyes in the background.

“Parvati, you wanna take this?” I asked her, and she gave me a nod and started “Parselmagic isn't evil by any means, in India there are hundreds of parselmouths. It is considered a gift actually.”

“Really?” Oliver asked in disbelief,  

“Parselmagic is primarily used in healing, a lot of times in warding and runic work too.” Hermione said as she came to sit beside me.

“Why?” Percy asked in wonder

“It’s a language that couldn’t be learned, so wards and runes written in parseltongue are considered unbreakable.” I told him, and he absentmindedly nodded in understanding, while thinking about this little information.

“But how can you both speak it?” Oliver asked me and Harry who was sitting in the corner of the room in a sad mood.

“Harry and I are descendants from a very old family.” I told them while looking at Harry with concern 

“Slytherin?” Ron asked with a snooty voice  

“Peverell.” I said glaring at him, which of course put him back in his place.

“From the tales of beedle and bard?” someone asked with wonder

“Yeah, what you guys don’t know about it or something? My mother is Lady Peverell.”

“Oh right, father was telling us about that.” Gorge said looking at his brother with understanding 

“This is very old news. Anyways, yeah, that is why we can both speak parseltongue.” I said and stood up to stretch my legs a bit.

“Well, it still gives me the chills,” Ron said with a little shiver, at which I just rolled my eyes and said “Couldn’t care less.” and with that I started walking out of the room.

“Where are you going?” Harry asked coming behind me 

“I have to talk to Albus.” I told him, who just cutely scrunched up his nose in irritation. Me calling adults with their first name really bothers him, but despite that the kid never says anything about it.

“Oh, do you want me to come?” he offered, but I just waved it with a small delighted laugh. “Nah, I’ll be fine.”

And with that I started my trek towards the headmasters office, which was on the top of the fucking castle. After reaching the gargoyle I just stared at it for a second then just flashed my Slytherin ring in front of it, and suddenly the gargoyle jumped out of the way. And then I simply walked in the office. Obviously Albus knew I entered his office, but he was a bit curious as to how I did it. I just showed him the ring on my finger and quickly disappeared it. With understanding he just sat back and with a pleasant expression greeted me.

“Cass, how are you doing my boy?” he asked with a small smile “Albus my man! I’m great.” I replied while dramatically flourishing my arms.

And suddenly his expression soured a bit, and many portraits around us looked at me with surprise and horror, with the way I just talked to the headmaster, but instead of getting angry Albus just mellowed down, and said “Yeah, don’t call me that please.” With a small smile I sat down on the chair opposite to him looking at all the knick-knacks around the office, suddenly the portrait of Professor Niamh Fitzgerald caught my attention, who was also looking at me with interest. I was just debating whether I should interact with her or not when Albus broke me out of my thoughts.

“Now how can I help you? I thought you would be enjoying your day with your friends today. All the classes are cancelled after all.” he asked with a smile, but that just reminded me of what happened yesterday which dampened my mood.

”First things first, you’re going to tell me what the fuck happened? Why did you not feel a fucking troll walking around in the castle?” I asked with a hardened voice, which caught him a bit off-guard, but then his shoulders slumped down and replied tiredly “I’m trying to find the answer for that too. I have suspected it for a long time but yesterday I got the confirmation. I’m blind to a lot of things in the castle.”

“Is it the wards?” I asked him as I took a candy from the bowl in front of him and popped it in my mouth.

“Possibly,” was his only reply before he mirrored me by taking a candy for himself. Thinking about the situation for a bit, I closed my eyes and focused on the wards and detected a teacher who was doing her rounds. “A teacher is doing rounds in the transfiguration courtyard, who are they?” I asked him as I opened my eyes, without missing a beat he replied “Professor Sprout.” 

Again I focused and found my next targets.

“Two people are in the greenhouse right now, what are their names?” I asked him again and like before without missing a beat he replied “Jack Danvers of Slytherin and Barbra Green from Ravenclaw.” After a few seconds his face went a bit red. “Someone should really stop them.” I just laughed at that and sat back again. “So you can feel all the students, what about their health and stuff?”

“Yeah, I can feel that too.” he said, as he stood up and started pacing around the office, humming, I again began to focus on the wards and after a few seconds I found something “There’s a dark ritualistic knife in the dungeons, can you feel it.” I asked him, but this time instead of answering me he just stared at me hard and then asked “No, I cannot. Where is it?”

“I can’t tell you the precise location, but it is somewhere around the Hufflepuff common room.” I told him with a sorry expression, but instead of paying any attention to it he just hurriedly sat back in his chair “I have to see about that.” and gestured to me to go on.

“What about the cursed books in the room of requirements?” I asked after a few seconds of searching.

“No I cannot.” he said with sadness, and looked at his table. His expression was really showing his age there.

“What about Voldemort?” I decided to not wait and ask the hard question. The minute I asked his expression turned into one of horror “You can feel him?” he asked me.

“Feel him?! Fucker is lighting up like radioactive light! It’s like something straight out of Chernobyl!” I exclaimed but obviously the reference went over his head. “can you really not feel him?” I asked him again but this time gently.

“I didn’t even know he was here.” he replied with horror “where is he?” he asked, getting up from the chair.

“Don’t worry about that, what we need is to see the wards.” I told him but nothing I said calmed him down. 

“We can deal with wards later! Tom should be our main priority!” he exclaimed angrily 

“Don’t worry about him! He won’t do anything until the end of the year, so put it on the back burner and look after the fucking wards!” I shouted back at him, I could see that he was definitely not convinced but he relented. “I’ll call professor Babbling. She knows a lot more about wards then I do.” and with that he called a house elf to go and tell professor babbling to come to the ward room.

Wards room was near the headmasters office down the corridor, with a giant metal suit guarding the entrance, which I wouldn’t have even discovered on my own, considering that there was no door. Instead the entrance opened up a lot like Diagon alley, the wall shifted out of our way and formed an entrance. The entire room was made to look like a giant circular room, with a lot of steps leading down in the middle towards a big brightly glowing stone and many different coloured rays emerging from it in a straight line out of the room. There were many runes carved onto the floor of the room that were glowing very faintly too. I was just admiring this when Bethesda came into the room behind us. 

After some quick explaining from Albus regarding the situation she took out her wand and started waving it around the stone and muttering something under her breath, after a few seconds her expression grew a bit grave and she started poking around the rays coming out of the rays coming out of the stone, and after a while we saw five or six rays that were not going anywhere instead they were just sort of floating around.

“Albus there are some very important wards disabled in here,” she said in a sort of angry and grave voice, “looks like some previous headmaster or headmistress disabled them.” 

“What wards are we talking about here, Bethesda?” Albus asked getting closer to get a better look at them, 

“This one here detects all the dark objects and dark magic, this here detects curses, this here negates unforgivables, this….this one is the anti-rape ward Albus. Someone disabled it.” she told us pointing her wand towards each of the floating rays “and there are three more that I can’t detect properly!” she said in a frustrated angry voice, but that frustration was shadowed by the amount of magic and anger I could feel rolling out of Albus at the moment. Without saying anything he stormed off towards his office. Professor babbling and I shared a glance and ran after him, we saw him approaching the gargoyle that was standing in his way, and it looked like in his anger he was about to destroy it, but before that could happen it just jumped out of his way, not in a graceful elegant way, but literally jumped within a second. Reaching his office he threw open the door with a wandless dipulso.

“Headmasters and headmistress of the hogwarts! I demand your attendance right now!” he roared and watched as all the previous headmasters and headmistresses quickly shuffled in their portraits. 

One of the portrait was of Armando Dippet who just looked at Albus and us with curiosity and concern “What is wrong Albus?” he asked but instead of replying to him albus simply roared at everyone else “I demand to know: which of you deliberately negated the anti-rape wards on the castle.” there were a lot of shocked and surprised voices shouting out, demanding questions of their own, many were appalled and looking at each other with shock. I was looking at a few older headmasters when professor Babbling pointed “Albus, look at him, he’s the only one struggling.” and looking at the portrait I could see that she was right, the person in the portrait was struggling to keep his mouth closed, he was trying to get out of his chair and leave but the magic of the castle was not letting him leave. “Of course it is him.” I said softly when I recognised him. 

“Phineas Nigellus Black! What do you know about this?!” Albus shouted at him, but somehow the man in the portrait was still persevering.

‘Any ideas?’ 

As the son of regulus black you are the heir of house of black. So use your authority. “As the heir and future Lord of the Black family I demand that you answer the headmaster!” I shouted at him too, and finally he opened his mouth 

“Pureblood students were being denied their rightful due from the mudbloods that were attending. I ensured that this would no longer be a problem.” Almost everyone was appalled by his confession and demanded that his portrait should be taken down. Summoning the portrait in his hands Albus asked him again in a very dangerous voice “What other wards did you disabled?” and Phineas quickly named everything he disabled or altered. While that was happening I saw a few small runes carved into the back of the frame, these were probably the reason he was able to struggle against the headmaster’s wishes.

“Tippy!” Albus called his house elf after he was done interrogating the portrait  “Yes headmaster?” she asked timidly, probably because Albus still looked angry as fuck! 

“Take this painting down in the special room, keep it there for now. I’ll deal with it later.” he handed her the portrait and without a word tippy apparated.

“Special room?” I asked curiously, but Albus quickly shot me down. “Don’t ask. Bethesda, how long do you think it’ll take us to bring all these wards back up?” he turned towards professor babbling and started talking about repairing the wards. I could see that I won’t able to help or do anything else today so I simply just walked out of the office.